Conventional techniques for preforming endodontic therapy on teeth are time consuming. Further, such procedures do not always adequately ensure that the entire canal system is filled with the repair material. Experience has shown that it is not possible to remove all pulpal remanents and contaminants from a root canal with current preparation techniques. If the pulpal remanents and contaminants are thoroughly entombed in the repair material, the endodontic therapy can be successful. If the remanents and contaminants are not thoroughly entombed, there is a high probability of failure of the therapy.
To achieve a high degree of success in endodontic therapy complete obturation of the canal system is necessary. Experience has shown that failure to completely obturate the canal system is the primary cause of failure in endodontic therapy. In the past, the usual means of filling an endodontically prepared root canal is by the use of a condenser, that is, a manually held tool having a small diameter shaft, usually flat on the end. The technician, whether a dentist or an endodontic specialist, applies filler material by dipping the condenser into a quantity of filler material, such as gutta percha, and inserting it into the root canal repeatedly to fill the canal, the condenser being used to compact the filler material in the root canal. This procedure is exceedingly time consuming, and the results are not uniformly predictable. Such system can fail to completely obturate the root canal.
Others have provided more automated systems in which the filler material is placed in a cylinder in a hand-held gun-like machine. The filler material is heated and by pressure to the filler material within the cylinder, the filler material is forced through a small tubular needle directly into the root canal. This procedure is advantageous over the purely manual condenser technique and has the significant advantage of reducing the time required to fill the root canal. However, any system that depends entirely upon compaction of filler material within a root canal is subject to some degree of failure because of the nature of filler material in current use, and particularly of the nature of gutta percha, the most commonly used filler material.
Gutta percha is frequently heated prior to use increase the plasticity thereof. When placed in a tooth it cools fairly quickly and when it cools is not subject to free flow into lateral passageways that might exist in the root canal that needs to be obturated in order to have a completely successful procedure.
The present invention relates to an improved method of filling the root canal in which filler material is applied by a filler gun thorough a tubular needle directly into the root canal in a tooth, followed by the insertion of the shaft portion of an obturator appliance into the root canal. The insertion of a physical device into a root canal filled with filler material tends to compact and disperse the filler material into all areas in the root canal, and particularly into lateral passageways, in a manner that is superior to other hereto known systems.